


Cary the Torch

by Flavortext



Series: Sabriel Songs [5]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Chronically ill character, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, I swear ill fix this next installment too, M/M, dont wORRY i swear its happy, mostly - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-07
Updated: 2016-10-07
Packaged: 2018-08-19 23:51:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,482
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8228993
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Flavortext/pseuds/Flavortext
Summary: Sam gets a call.





	

_The star that gives us light_

_Has been gone a while_

_But it's not an illusion_

Sam nearly chokes when he see’s Gabe. He’s lying in a hospital bed, propped up on pillows, his skin is pale, his eyes are cloudy. And yet he grins as Sam enters.

“My knight in shining armour!” Gabriel puts his arms out for a hug, Sam just sits in the chair a few feet away from the bed, which makes Gabriel pout.

“Why the hell am I your emergency contact? Why not Michael?” Sam says, as slowly and calmly as he can. When he’d gotten the call he hadn’t thought twice, just rushed out of class and packed a night bag and drove three hours- three hours that had let him finally think, simmer, to the hospital.

Gabriel looks ashamed. He ducks his head and mutters something softly.

“What?” Sam asked, leaning a little closer.”

“Never changed my records since I filled them out in high school. Michael and I don’t really...click. Thought we would be together forever.” Gabriel ends with a laugh, but it’s half hearted. Sam drags a hand over his face.

“Okay...dammit Gabe.” Sam suddenly feels his anger roaring back up. “All those years, sitting by Cas’s bedside, watching him get taken apart and sewn up and _suffering_. You never thought to tell me ‘hey, sammy, that could be me!’” He regrets his worlds immediately, as Gabriel keeps his head turned away and winces, but they’re out.

“Thought I would get lucky. I was lucky, I _am_ lucky, Sam. I made it years with just a careful diet and a little pain. I’m 23 and this is all I have to deal with! And you know why I didn’t tell you. We watched what this-being sick- did to Cas and Dean. Nearly tore them apart, left them broken more times that we even know.” Gabriel stops, panting as if he’s expended all his energy. Sam knows he probably has. He sighs.

“What can I do, Gabriel?”

_The ache in my heart_

_Is so much a part of who I am_

Gabriel goes through a two hour surgery, which to Sam feels like a week. He drinks about four coffees. By the time a nurse comes to take him to Gabe’s room, he nearly runs to the elevator.

Gabriel is asleep. His hair is falling all over his face, but he looks good, and he’s safe. Sam sits by his bed, fixes his hair over and over again, until he wakes up.

“How do you feel?” He asks as soon as Gabriel’s eyes crack open. Gabe grunts, mouth dry, but pulls a tiny smile. Sam wishes he could get him a glass of water, but he was given very strict instructions by the doctors and staff- he has to let Gabriel heal (he’s almost sure they were trying to imply something else, even after they assured everyone they weren’t dating, but hey). He instead puts on the TV, and if Gabriel falls asleep holding his hand and he doesn’t pull away, that’s his business.

_Something in your eyes_

_Took a thousand years to get here_

Gabriel need’s a place to stay. Sam is renting an apartment, he planned for it to be just for the summer, to get a feel for living on his own and then to go back to a dorm, but Gabriel offers to pitch in and soon he’s helping him up the stairs and into a new Lazy-Boy recliner. Gabriel dozes off almost immediately, tired from the drive. Sam gets him an ice pack, since he’s been fighting hospital-flu, and a candybar for when he wakes up (because somehow, sugar, peanut butter, and chocolate are the two things that bother Gabe’s gut the least).

He settles in on the couch across from Gabe and the Tv and takes out his laptop. He has an email from Dean, a picture of him and Cas on their trip to Norway. They are both grinning, a beautiful lake in the background. Sam shoot them a reply, says he’s got Gabe home safe, and checks his other messages.

When Gabriel wakes up, he doesn’t know where he is. The room is half-lit by a sunset through a window he can’t see, and there’s a moose on the couch. He figures out pretty quickly through pain med fog it’s Sam, but the thought makes him smile anyways.

“Rise and shine!” He calls, managing to reach the pull on the lamp next to him and light up the room. Sam wakes up and groggily covers his eyes. Gabriel is looking around curiously. Sam hasn’t really decorated, the apartment is small and he doesn’t have much, besides a few pictures of friends and Dean and them and the Novaks, but those are in his bedroom.

Gabriel doesn’t realise Sam looks upset for a few days. He actually tries his best not to look at Sam at all, he feels bad for being an intruder on Sam’s life. And everything is awkward between them. Every touch is charged, every accidental look makes them each try to decipher its meaning. They feel like strangers to each other, but they are all to familiar.

_Hold me close_

_Hold me close and don't let me go_

_Hold me close_

_Like I'm someone that you might know_

Gabriel doesn’t knock on Sam’s door. He has a blanket from his couch bed wrapped around him, and he know’s Sam is up from the slight electronic light spilling from under his door. Sam, in turn, hardly looks up when Gabriel enters, and just scoot’s over on his bed.

“What’s up?” He asks. Gabriel doesn’t say, he just sits, adjusts the blanket, and leans into Sam. Sam puts an arm around him, holds him, and keeps watching his laptop screen.

_Hold me close_

_The darkness just lets us see_

_Who we are_

_I've got your life inside of me_

Gabe’s pillows move from the couch to the bed within a month. What happens in the dark, in Sam’s room, stays there.

_Once we are born_

_We begin to forget_

_The very reason we came_

“Angel, grab me a beer, please!” Sam call’s from the living room. Gabriel startles, it's been a year, maybe longer, since Sam called him that. The sudden silence in the other room tells him Sam didn’t mean to say it, and probably smashed the mute on the remote when he tried to cover his mouth, as if that would take back his words. Gabriel grabs him a beer, and doesn’t mention it.

_But you I'm sure I've met_

_Long before the night_

_The stars went out_

_We're meeting up again_

Sam makes a desision while Gabriel lays sleeping and naked on his chest. Tomorrow, he’s going to kiss him. In full daylight. He’s going to start this over, get it right. He turns out the light.

_The stars are bright_

_But do they know_

_The universe is beautiful but cold_

Gabriel is up before Sam. He takes a shower, starts some oatmeal on the stove, and then starts to pack his bags. Summer is almost over, and he has to find himself a life now. Sam won’t want him around forever.

_You took me by the hand_

_I thought that I was leading you_

_But it was you made me your man_

When Sam wakes up, Gabriel tells him.

“I'm leaving. Michael offered me a job again, I start tomorrow. In San Diego.” He says. He’s trying to separate his clothes from Sam’s. Sam makes a little noise, only just awake and, Gabe can tell, hurt.

“You’re leaving, now?” He murmurs when Gabriel turns around.

“I owe you so much, man. I’ll pay up for the end of this month’s rent.” Gabriels says it as if that settles it, solves the problem.

_Iris standing in the hall_

_She tells me I can do it all_

_Iris wakes to my nightmares_

_Don't fear the world_

_It isn't there_

Sam lets Gabriel take a cab to the airport. He cries in their-his- bedroom. He takes a picture off the wall, one where Gabriel's eyes are gold.

_She said free yourself to be yourself_

_If only you could see yourself_

_Free yourself to be yourself_

_If only you could see_

Sam somehow finds that he moves on, this time. He and Gabriel text, they exchange weather from each coast. Gabriel talks about his job, his brothers, his antics. Eventually Sam has nothing more to say. He’s taking theatre, and a writing class. He’s thinking about Law school, even though Gabe jokes that he should go to culinary school, just to become his personal chef.

Soon, their text’s dwindle to once a week or so, just to check in or exchange a story. Gabriel signs some papers and takes Sam off his emergency contacts at his next doctor's appointment. He doesn’t tell Sam.


End file.
